I recently signed up for a few exchanges (Coinbase, MtGox, and BTC-E). In the first two cases I noticed a couple of downers. Coinbase doesn't allow you to deposit USD before buying BTC, making the process unreasonably long. MtGox only lets you buy BTC and requires a ridiculous amount of verification. BTC-E seems to be a good balance but I'm having a hard time choosing a payment processor to use for transferring USD.

Can anyone chime in on safe/reputable sites to use for transferring USD? Or possibly any other safe/reputable exchanges for buying BTC and altcoins?

I can't answer your question directly but I can warn you about some things. First I recommend you do not use CampBX at this time. There seem to be complaints accumulating from all sides and their support is non-existent. Coinbase seems to have mixed reviews, mostly people saying their order was cancelled without adequate explanation and usually after BTC goes up it seems, making it look a little shady. But to my knowledge people aren't having the disappearing fund issue like CampBX has. Wire transfers into BTC-e seem dangerous. I have seen numerous reports of those disappearing and some of them with very high dollar amounts. MtGox is a dinosaur and if you are talking about US dollars don't even bother with that exchange.

BTC-e has a number of funding options including stuff I never heard of so one of those might work. EGOpay and OKpay look like legit options but then you have the issue of how to fund your EGOpay or OKpay account. I am pretty sure one of them can be funded through paypal but then you have fees, fees, fees. Still though fees is preferable to funds that disappear.

Thanks. I actually took a look at CampBX initially but something felt a little "off" about it so I kept looking. BTC-E wire transfers require a minimum of $2k USD so I definitely wasn't going to do that either. After reading some complaints about OKpay, I got a little frustrated and decided to ask the question. Certainly people are buying bitcoin with good experiences from somewhere right?

What I find amazing is how even the US-based exchanges can be screwing with people.

My account was verified a few days ago, and I just traded on CoinMKT for the first time.

I deposited crypto, traded crypto, then went to withdraw crypto, and suddenly "...automatic withdrawals are temporarily unavailable. Please contact support with your account number and..." yadda yadda yadda

I can deposit, and trade, but not withdraw? Really?!

I'm reasonably sure that many (if not all) of these exchanges are operating with just a tiny fraction of their deposits on-hand. Coinbase we already know is a fund more than an exchange, so at least they have an excuse.

If you are from the EU, i would recommend bitcoin.de. Sure, it takes quite a time to verificate and you can not deposit euros. But it is a safe and secure! There is a official bank helping the site and in a few weeks instantly trading should be possible (by creating real bank account with a small interest rate).

On the other hand I trade on btc-e. I don't really care about getting euro/dollars in or out there, because I use bitcoins. Costs 0.001btc and takes at max a one hour.

PS: I only went to btc.e, because it was the largest exchange which handels altcoins. Because i wanted to buy primecoins, I bought an extra 5btc 1,5month ago hihi.

"Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work - whereas economics represents how it actually does work." Freakonomics

I can't answer your question directly but I can warn you about some things. First I recommend you do not use CampBX at this time. There seem to be complaints accumulating from all sides and their support is non-existent. Coinbase seems to have mixed reviews, mostly people saying their order was cancelled without adequate explanation and usually after BTC goes up it seems, making it look a little shady. But to my knowledge people aren't having the disappearing fund issue like CampBX has. Wire transfers into BTC-e seem dangerous. I have seen numerous reports of those disappearing and some of them with very high dollar amounts. MtGox is a dinosaur and if you are talking about US dollars don't even bother with that exchange.

BTC-e has a number of funding options including stuff I never heard of so one of those might work. EGOpay and OKpay look like legit options but then you have the issue of how to fund your EGOpay or OKpay account. I am pretty sure one of them can be funded through paypal but then you have fees, fees, fees. Still though fees is preferable to funds that disappear.

Maybe someone will chime in with a better option.

It seems that you're right about the fees, fees, fees. The various payment sites that can be used by BTC-E are really more like e-wallets. You have to go through other currency exchange sites after that, setting up 3-4 online accounts in the process. So your money trail looks more like Bank Account / Credit Card > PayPal > TechnoCashier > Perfect Money > BTC-E.

It gets worse though. Some of these sites explicitly say they don't serve US citizens. Others don't have SSL certificates. The ones that do may not be verifiable. Some of the referral links direct you to sites without an SSL even though typing in the URL directly would give you encryption. On top of that, I tried to type some of these addresses in directly to find their sites with SSL turned on and what do ya know - I get "Domain Seized by the Global Illicit Financial Team".

If you are from the EU, i would recommend bitcoin.de. Sure, it takes quite a time to verificate and you can not deposit euros. But it is a safe and secure! There is a official bank helping the site and in a few weeks instantly trading should be possible (by creating real bank account with a small interest rate).

On the other hand I trade on btc-e. I don't really care about getting euro/dollars in or out there, because I use bitcoins. Costs 0.001btc and takes at max a one hour.

PS: I only went to btc.e, because it was the largest exchange which handels altcoins. Because i wanted to buy primecoins, I bought an extra 5btc 1,5month ago hihi.

I am not in the EU so I don't have the option of bitcoin.de sadly. But it looks like i won't be able to buy altcoins directly.

UPDATE: CoinMKT withdrawals are still not working as of noon EST today. I got an email from support at 4am, stating they they would be working again "in the morning", and saying that they were doing updates. Someone else who also couldn't withdraw funds was told they were being DDoS'ed. I'm not calling it a scam yet because of the holiday, but this needs to get resolved by Monday or I'll take legal action.

ItBit gives the impression of being a US-based exchange, but is actually in Singapore. Verified my account, then proceeded to ask for more bank account information, which I refused. Then they claimed to not do business with US-based customers, even though they already took my info and verified me. Very shady.

BTC-e is good for crypto-in/crypto-out, but I would not deposit fiat with them.

Coinbase is very clever in that they saw this situation coming and positioned themselves to make tons of money in the next 12-24 months, while risking nothing in the process.